Mother Theresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on August 26, 1910 and died on September 5, 1997. She was born in Skopje, Macedonia, in the former Yugoslavia. She was the youngest of three children.

Agnes became a member of a youth group in her local pairsh called Sodality. She became interested in missionaries through her involvement in the church activities. She responded to her calling as a vocation as a Catholic missionary nun at the age of 17. She joined an Irish order, the Sisters of Loretto, a community known for their missionary work in India. She chose the name Theresa after Saint Theresa of Saint Theresa of Lisieux. She chose that name by the time she took her vows as a sister of Loretto.

From 1931 to 1948 while she was in Calcutta, Sister Teresa taught geography and cathechism at St. Mary's High School.  While she was still teaching there, something different caught up her mind. She saw poverty and the suffering that people of Calcutta went through it. Later on she contracted tuberculosis and she was unable to continue teaching and was sent to Darjeeling to rest and recover. While she was on the train to Darjeeling she received her second call from God. She called this call "the call within the call". She decided to leave convent and work with the poor of the poorest and live among them. She took the second calling as an order from God. She knew that she needs to help the poor but did not know how to get there.

Mother Theresa did not have funds to operate the calling. She depended on Divine Providence. She started an open-air school for slum children. Luckily she was joined by voluntary helpers and she got financial support coming at all angles. All the support she received from people made things possible for her to extend the capacity of her work. While she was working there she learned basic medicine. She used this knowledge to treat the sick people who required some help. With this knowledge Mother Theresa and her helpers helped the sick people that were dying on the streets. These people were rejected by the hospitals. They had no one to care for. Mother Theresa rented a room so that they could care for these helpless people otherwise they were going to die on the streets. Later on Mother Theresa's group was discovered by the Church as a Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese. It was known as the Missionaries of Charity.

Mother Theresa's work is recognised worldwide. The Missionaries of Charity throughout the world are aided and assisted by Co-Workers who became an official International Association on March 29, 1969. By the 1990s there were over one million Co-Workers in more than 40 countries. Along with the Co-Workers, the lay Missionaries of Charity try to follow Mother Teresa's spirit and charism in their families.

Mother Theresa received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971) and the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding (1972). She also received the Balzan Prize (1979) and the Templeton and Magsaysay awards.

For more information on Mother Theresia:

• Nobel prize
• Wikipedia
• Ewtn
  

Siphokazi Mthathi, known as Sipho was born in Ciskei, Eastern Cape in 1974. Sipho a TAC Treatment Literacy Co-ordinator was raised by her grandmother after her mother left home to find work. They settled in Umgababa, a Ciskei village. After finishing her primary school she moved to Grahamstown to attend high school.

After finishing her matric she did not have money to further her studies. She took a bus to the University of the Western Cape and talked her way into a free education. She obtained an honours degree in English literature and she also completed a diploma in education at Rhodes University. Twelve years later her voice still reflects the joy of winning a place at university. It was never easy as she often had to work at night to pay her fees and studied by day.

Sipho Mthathi was a member of the Young Women's League and the African National Congress. She worked with township community groups during her time at the university. Her activism helped her to get a job teaching English at the exclusive Herschel girls' school in Cape Town. She left her job after a year to run a school project in Cape Town for the South African Institute of Race Relations. The aim was to integrate learners and cultures.

Sipho also developed a TAC's treatment literacy programme to provide poor and semi-literate people with access to information about HIV/Aids. She also helped them to set out their rights under the Constitution. The programme has been recognised by UNAIDS as a best practice in South Africa. Her interest on HIV/Aids grew up after she lost one of her cousin who died of AIDS related illness. She went to the first TAC meeting which was held in Guguletu in 1999. After participating and attending meetings she was elected to the TAC's national executive committee as deputy chairperson. Sipho has been a TAC member since 2000. In 2005 she was chosen as the organisation's first general secretary.

People have been surprised that the new leader of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is a woman and HIV-negative. Gender is always a problem when it comes to top positions in South Africa. She is outspoken about the opposition she faces in the top post because of her gender. There is also a perception that she is a "symbol" and that chairperson Zackie Achmat and Treasurer Mark Heywood will remain the most visible faces of the organisation. Sipho Mthathi explained that it is painful and disrespectful for people to look at her as token in the organisation.

Sipho, a poet and the mother of an 11-year-old boy, is very happy with the community work that she is doing and she is also pursuing her writing career.

Sources:-

• AEGIS
• Democracy now
  

Promise Mthembu, an HIV/AIDS activist was born in 1975.  She is currently working with the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS as Global Advocacy Officer for Sexual and Reproductive rights.  She has co-founded and coordinated the Young Positive Living Ambassadors Programme. The programme aims at addressing human rights and gender issues affecting youth living with HIV It also aims mainstreaming HIV in youth development work. She also worked with the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa as Coordinator of the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission Programme.

Promise found out about her HIV status when she went for her tuberculosis check up in the clinic. She was only twenty years at the time. Besides the test she thought that she was infected when she was 15 years old. She got pregnant when she was 15 years and her daughter is living with HIV/AIDS. The doctors think that the child was infected at birth. Promise agreed to be tested for HIV when she was pregnant and she never thought that the results would be positive. When she got the results she was shocked and angry as she was only going out with one partner. It was not easy for Promise to come in terms with her status.

It was very difficult for her to disclose her HIV status. She kept it in her heat for some time trying to answer all the questions she has about this disease. She accepted the fact that she was HIV-positive and there's nothing possible for her to change the situation. Promise told her partner and her family. Her partner was shocked and found it hard to believe. Her family was supportive.

Promise was still angry with the disease and that is the anger that led her to attend AIDS meetings. She wanted to change the way AIDS work was being done. She believed that if HIV/AIDS awareness was working she would not have been infected.

She began to speak openly about living with HIV/AIDS in an effort to prevent others from becoming infected. As we all know the stigmas that use to go with the disease, her parents were not happy with the fact that she speaks openly about living with HIV/AIDS. They thought that it will bring shame to the family as they are church members of the Catholic Church.

When Promise was eight months pregnant the baby died in utero. She noticed that for three days the baby was no longer breathing. She was induced and she gave birth to a stillborn child. This was a shocking experience for Promise. One day later her partner lost another child that he had with another woman. This child was also stillborn and the cause was also an infection in utero. Promise began to realize that HIV was really in her body and was causing slow damage.

Unfortunately for Promise she never got any support from her partner. Instead he was angry and he became very abusive. The abuse began growing daily. He would beat her because he was HIV-positive and frustrated. Promise did not know what to do she accepted the way he treated her. She decided to marry him thinking that he will know that she cares for him. The marriage was very abusive and it changed nothing. Promise's husband was even angry that his wife attend AIDS meeting and share her own story with other people.

Promise and her husband were both receiving counselling and information about the necessity of practising safer sex. That didn't help as her husband still forced her into unprotected sex, claiming that he paid lobola to own her body. Promise's life became an endless circle of beatings and unprotected sex, especially when he was drunk. Promise could not take it any longer and she left her husband and stayed with her parents. She knew that she was bringing shame and disgrace to her family but she had no other choice.

After three months Promise became sick. The doctors diagnosed a cervical cyst. She was hospitalized so that the cyst could be removed. The doctors also found out that she was pregnant. Promise did not want to have a child at that stage and requested that the pregnancy be terminated. The doctors agreed to the termination and she was also sterilized.

Promise's story highlights some of the negative aspects and issues of being a woman living with HIV/AIDS. However, things are not all negative. It is possible to live a positive life with HIV and its stigma and discrimination. the obstacles can be overcome.

Sources:-

• American Bar Association
• Positive nation
• health System Trust